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Tuesday, December 15, 2009

THE UNITED STATES DECIDES ON A PRISON IN RURAL ILLINOIS AS A PLACE TO KEEP MANY GUANTANAMO PRISONERS

RESPONSE TO A COLUMN IN TORONTO'S GLOBE AND MAIL

This is just one more stupid, blundering injustice by the United States.

They kidnapped these men and have held them illegally for eight years, torturing and abusing them.

There are no proper charges against any of them. There is no court competent to try them. Any evidence is utterly worthless, contaminated by American torture and illegal procedures.

America has held them for most of that time without lawyers, without family visits, and without access by the Red Cross.

International law has been broken, as well as important international conventions.

These men should be released.

They are a danger to no one, even the ones who might once have been.

They are completely compromised. Everything which could be known about them is known.

They are of no use to any terrorist organization, even if there were one called al Qaeda, which there is not.

Apart from all the other things one might say about this illegal imprisoning of men in a remote part of Illinois, it is, above all, meaningless public relations.

If he is not going to free the innocent - which is what they are under our law as well as that of the United States - Obama might just as well leave them at Guantanamo now that that the torture and abuse have stopped.

Cuba is a far more pleasant place than Illinois in the winter.

And can you imagine how they will be greeted by a general prison population after eight years of relentless propaganda about how terrible they are?